Volvo quietly goes about its business.
I'm pretty sure it would prefer it not to be quite as quiet, but then it is equally true it is competing in a market that's heavily weighted in favour of players with longer histories.
And also, it is a very tradition-fuelled market, much like our politics, but that should not detract from the rather surprising little Volvo C30.
Surprising? Well, that might be a bit difficult to explain.
It wasn't a question of it offering more than I expected; it has more to do with what it offered in terms of its appearance and packaging.
The first thing to note is that the test car came with the lowest-spec 1600cc engine and manual transmission. Truth be told, I didn't expect all that much either.
When you walk up to this car and flatten your nose against the glass, you see a rather tame, quiet interior. I could have said unexciting but that would also misrepresent the truth. Quiet is the best word.
When you open the door, you get into a more comfortable seat than you might expect at first glance.
And, once seated, the uncluttered fascia tells you everything you need to know and the controls fall to hand with the greatest of ease.
All in all, the C30 offers a rather pleasant environment that's not the least bit as daunting as those of some others on our roads these days.
Some cars, when you drive them at night, have a cockpit so covered in little lights and icons, you feel you need a pilot's licence, not the ordinary K53-based card.
Not so the C30. After a long period of having been slammed with technology, it was really nice to get into a car that didn't try to impress me with bells and whistles.
Volvo believes the C30 is mostly meant for a city environment. I think it's selling the car short.
Certainly, the exterior design makes you think of young people with an active nightlife but, while I had the car, I happily drove it along a circuitous route that ended up registering about 400km of rural roads at pace - and I cannot say it was a tiresome experience at all.
All the while, that 1600cc engine did its job with no fuss, plenty of pull and great fuel economy that ended up setting me back a mere 7.8 litres/100km. Really. And in the city that went up to 8.1.
CARBON TO BANK
Here you have a compact luxury car from Europe, with European qualities that are not to be sneezed at and still at a very reasonable price, considering.
R233 000 is no longer expensive, comparatively speaking, and none of the other European biggies except Alfa Romeo offers a compact 1600cc with this kind of quality.
The engine offers 74kW and 150Nm and, according to the greenhouse tests, only spews out 167g of carbon every kilometre. Plant a "spekboom" in your garden and you will sequestrate 10 tons of carbon a year, which will allow you to buy 10 of these and still have carbon to bank.